Decimation X
by The 4th Snake
Summary: In the wake of M-Day, Emma Frost fears for the lives of the remaining members of Generation X and seeks to ensure their safety.
1. Emma

Chaos.

That was the word that best described that day. The day the Scarlet Witch said enough, the day she said, "No more mutants."

'M-Day', as it would come to be known, was one of the most infamous days in the history of mutantkind. Few knew the cause, that Wanda Maximoff of an alternate timeline had done this in grief, and those that did were unprepared for the result of Wanda's words. In an instant, the world's mutant population was reduced from millions to a mere few hundred, through a mass worldwide depowering. Some would rejoice at losing the deformities and burdens they had been cursed with. Others fell into depression from losing what they felt had made them special. And there were some that were less fortunate, and were unable to cope or even survive with what remained of their inhuman forms. But whatever the eventual sentiment, the initial reaction amongst all mutants was one of panic.

It was the Xavier Institue for Higher Learning, home of the X-Men and the near two hundred mutant students they taught that was truly hit hardest.

Chaos erupted immediately. Students cried out for their lost powers and compared who among them had and had not retained their mutations.

Headmistress Emma Frost was among the first to know of the depowering. As soon as the so-called 'House of M' timeline ceased and reality reverted back to its original state, Emma found herself standing on the institute's lawn, feeling somewhat disorientated. She was vaguely aware of her other life, but for now, it was like a dream, a dream from which she awoke into a nightmare.

Her disorientation quickly washed away as her mind was bombarded with the panicked thoughts for hundreds of young mutants, crying out for help.

"No," Emma uttered as she finally recalled the Scarlet Witch's words. But before she could properly conceive the true gravity of the situation, she heard a scream.

"HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!"

"Please, God, no!" Emma sprinted back towards the school, praying that her hunch would not prove true. As she entered the school, she was horrified to find that it was. Students were running, screaming, terrified. But Emma was the headmistress and she needed to put the students at ease.

"Everyone, stay calm!" she commanded, but few students noticed she was even there in their blind panic. She would have to try a little louder. "Everything... uhhhhn... is going to be alright." Emma struggled to maintain her focus from the sheer volume of mental activity she was picking up. She struggled to push through the students' thoughts to make telepathic contact with her protégés, the Stepford Cuckoos.

"Too loud. Make it stop," the trio pleaded as one. Although incredibly talented telepaths in their own right, the girls were not nearly as well trained as Emma and had more trouble keeping the screams out, which Emma herself, though she loathed to admit it, was barely able to cope with herself.

Emma needed to reach Cerebra to see the full extent of what the Scarlet Witch had wrought, but it was no easy task. Emma put a student or two to sleep to keep them from harming themselves and others. By the time she made it into the institute's basement, the strain of the situation bore heavily on her psyche and Emma could feel a warm trail of blood trickling down from her nose. As she staggered down the hall, leaning against the wall for support, Emma could sense the thoughts of the students that realised they had lost their powers.

Dallas Gibson. Jessica Vale. Sarah Vale. Sofia Mantega. Melody Guthrie.

Emma could feel the whole spectrum of emotions, from fear to joy to anger to denial. She felt like she had never experienced so many thoughts at once on this scale. Thoughts were easy enough to process when they were calm, but this was overwhelming.

Danielle Moonstar. Mark Sheppard. Callie Betto. Andrea Margulies. Noah Crichton.

She did what she could to co-ordinate the X-Men to where they were most needed. Hank was able to prevent Melody from plummeting to her death trying to fly, but Logan was unable to save Noah from drowning in the school's swimming pool.

David Alleyne. Lazaro Kotikash. Aurelie Sabayon. Frida Rivera. Brian Cruz.

Emma struggled to keep it together as she reached the spherical chamber that housed Cerebra. she cried mentally. She was relieved to hear her response from behind almost immediately.

"Miss Frost?" the three girls said as one. "I'm dying. Make it stop."

Emma slammed her hand down on the door controls, prying the doors open herself as she found the automatic process to be much too slow, and found the interior of the chamber awash in a fiery red warning light. She quickly crossed the bridge of the spherical chamber to the console where Cerebra's interface helmet rested as a computerised voice gave her a concise explanation of what was happening.

[Mutant population anomaly. Re-estimating population. 91.4% decrease compared to prior data.]

"Damn you, Pietro," Emma cursed, recalling Quicksilver's role in the whole 'House of M' event. Fortunately, if the school was any indication, 'No more mutants' did not mean mutants would start dropping dead en masse; but rather, lose their powers and physical mutations. Regardless, the students' thoughts were too much for her, let alone the Cuckoos. "Help me, girls. All at once." With a quick mental explanation, the Three-in-One obeyed.

"SLEEP!" The four psychics broadcast a telepathic command that rendered the entire student body unconscious on the spot.

Although her head still felt like it was being beaten to a pulp by the Juggernaut, Emma felt a great weight being lifted as the students' thoughts ceased to invade her mind. Finally, Emma could clear her mind enough to think. And even without looking into their minds, Emma could tell that the Cuckoos felt the same.

"Thank you, my girls," Emma panted.

"Not... your girls. Never... yours," the trio replied, though seemingly lacking the energy with inject much venom into their words. "Wh-What's happening?"

"We've become an endangered species," Emma replied grimly. "Please return upstairs and help co-ordinate the staff while I... try and figure this all out."

Wordlessly, Celeste, Irma and Phoebe did as they were asked, leaving Emma alone in the chamber.

Once the three teens had left, Emma placed a hand on Cerebra's console for support as she wiped the blood from her nose with her other, turning her attention to allies outside of the institute, in particular, her former students. Those she hadn't failed to protect anyway. As the faces of those she cared for flashed through her mind, one face in particular brought her train of thought to a screeching halt.

"Jonothon. My God."

Jonothon Starsmore was a young British mutant that had been under Emma's tutelage as part of the team Generation X, operating under the codename Chamber. Jono was the poster child for mutations being harmful to the mutants afflicted with them; his body naturally produced and stored a vast amount of psionic energy. When his powers had first manifested at age eighteen, the energy had been far too much for his body to handle, and had exploded from within, completely destroying his chest, internal organs and lower jaw in the process. The energy itself was able to sustain Jono's life, eliminating the need to eat to survive, but he had to cover the blazing furnace in his abdomen at all times, doing nothing for his self-confidence. If he lost the ability to produce that energy...

Snatching up Cerebra's headgear and forcing it down around her head, Emma began her mental search of the globe for her student. She had lost so many students in the past; the Hellions, Everett, Angelo, Sophie and Esme, and now Noah. Even Sean, her partner at the Massachusetts Academy was gone. She couldn't bear to lose any more students. Any more _family_.

Despite the thousands upon thousands of frantic and panicked thoughts she sifted through, the world had never seemed so quiet. There were so few mutants left in the world, no more than a few hundred. She knew Jono's psionic energy signature very well, having spent such a long time under the same roof back in Massachusetts, which made it considerably easier to track him down.

Eventually, she found him under the Brooklyn Bridge, where he had been on a mission, operating undercover within the Weapon X program. She could see him in her mind's eye and what she saw made her blood run cold. Jono was lying spread-eagle on the scorched earth around him, gaping hole where his chest should be, and none of that familiar fiery energy remaining.

"Jono... Oh, God, Jono..." Warm tears rolled down Emma's petrified cheeks as she saw yet another of her students dead. Dead because she couldn't save him. Half of Generation X was gone now and it was only a matter of time before another one joined them. Who would she _fail_ to save next? Jubilee? Monet? Paige?

"Em...ma..."

Emma's eyes shot open as she heard Jono's voice in her mind. He was alive, but just barely. He had no hope of survival if not tended to immediately. A quick scan of the upstairs showed that the faculty had mostly gathered together, a few taking a quick headcount of the sleeping students. The panic had mostly calmed down, meaning they could risk sending someone.

"Scott? Scott, I need you right now."

Even in his head, Scott could hear the frantic hurry in Emma's voice. "Emma? What is it?"

"It's Jonothon. He's alive, but he won't be for long if we don't help him immediately."

"I understand your concern, Emma-" Before he could even finish that thought, Emma knew what he was going to say; that they needed everyone at the mansion to keep the students safe and find out the scope of what was happening.

"No you do _not_ understand how I feel, Scott. Jonothon is _dying_ ; I can feel his life slipping away and _you_ sent him on that mission to infiltrate Weapon X and you're going to go and bring him home."

"Emma-"

"NOW!" Scott reeled from Emma's psychic scream and struggled to regain his composure.

"What is it, Scott?" Hank asked concernedly.

After taking a moment to fully recover, Scott answered. "Emma's found Chamber, Hank. He's been depowered too."

Hank's eyes widened as he realised the implication. "Prep the blackbird. I'll get some equipment ready."

As Hank rushed off to his lab, Scott began issuing orders to the rest of the team. He left Kitty Pryde in charge to maintain calm and explain what they knew to the students, while Logan would join him in rescuing Jono. He asked Emma to work with the Cuckoos to keep the students calm as they awoke, which she did, but her mind kept drifting back to Jono. She could feel that Jono knew he was dying and she had to be there for him in case... in case Scott and Logan couldn't make it in time.

She created a projection of herself in his mind, appearing beside him for comfort. She took his hand in hers and told him it would be okay. For a brief moment, he thought she was an angel. She couldn't help but smile at that.

Emma had always felt that there was a line drawn between herself and her students, despite her best efforts. It wasn't necessarily her past with the Hellfire Club. It was perhaps her attitude in teaching them. Emma had always been harsh, but only because she wanted to be sure her students would be ready, unlike her first team, the Hellions. But despite her best efforts, she had still had students die under her protection. She was still a failure as a guardian.

"It's not... your fault..." Jono assured her weakly as he grasped her hand tighter. It seemed she had left her mind completely open for a moment, allowing Jono a glimpse into her safely-guarded neuroses even without his own telepathy. "Ev and Angelo... don't blame..." Jono fell silent.

"Jonothon? Jonothon!? Jonothon, stay with me!" Emma pleaded as she felt her student's life dwindling down to nothing. "Jonothon, I _order_ you, as your teacher, to keep fighting just a little while longer. Help us to save you. Please."

There was no response for what felt like an eternity, before Emma heard the word "okay" from Jono's mind. Emma smiled gratefully, trying to hide the fact that she was crying.

There was a loud rumbling as the ground shook and a fierce wind blew through the area as the x-jet hovered overhead before touching down. The cargo ramp lowered and Logan hurriedly pushed a large pod-like device down towards the boy. Scott soon joined him and the two carefully lifted Jono up and placed him inside the pod, which sealed up after him.

According to Hank, the device would place Jono into a state of cryogenic stasis and keep him stable until they could get him proper medical attention, which in light of recent events, could take some time. Regardless, Emma let out a sigh of relief, knowing that she wasn't about to lose another student.

With Jono frozen, Emma latched onto Scott's mind to keep up-to-date on the situation. "It's okay now, Emma," Scott reassured her after sensing her in his mind. "Jono's safe. Logan's putting in a call to Midtown Hospital. He'll stay there until he's fit to be moved, then we'll see about transferring him somewhere better-equipped to handle him. In England maybe."

"England? Scott, I'd be much more comfortable if he was-"

"At the institute?" Scott interrupted. "Emma, we can barely cope with the students we have now. And with mutant numbers dwindling, we're going to become a target now that we're so vulnerable. The institute is the last place he needs to be right now."

Emma took a moment to take in Scott's words. She sighed in exasperation, knowing he was right. "I'm sorry, Scott. I wasn't thinking straight."

"It's okay, Emma. I know how difficult this all is. But right now, I need you focused on the students back home. They need your guidance."

"You're right. I'll... I'll do that. And Scott, Logan? Thank you."

"Of course, Emma."

"Don't mention it."

Emma removed Cerebra's helmet and let out one last deep sigh, releasing her stress and anguish as she did so. She turned and left the chamber, finding that the Cuckoos were waiting for her, most likely having sensed her little breakdown. While she would have preferred to keep that just between herself and Jono, Emma found some solace from knowing that the girls did still care about their 'mother'.

"Come along, girls. This is still a school and we have a certain level of calm and order to maintain. And with everything that's happening, we need those things now more than ever."

* * *

 _It's funny how you can plan a simple short story and then come up with ideas for how to extend it. In this case, the idea was for a single chapter, but I have ideas involving the rest of the surviving Generation X cast, so I'll be coming back to this in the future._

 _I love Generation X. I tend to find that the X-books about the teen mutants tend to be my favourite comics (see also New X-Men, whose 20th issue the first half of this chapter draws directly from). Chamber was always my favourite member of the team and I hate to see how much potential they waste with him, like that whole Apocalypse body phase._

 _The idea for this story came to me as I realised something with the story following M-Day. Chamber obviously needs swift medical attention from the X-Men to not die from the gaping hole in his chest. The two X-Men that go to save him are Cyclops and wolverine, the two most notable members of the mutant community aside from arguably Charles Xavier and Magneto. So why would those two go so quickly when there are hundreds of students at the mansion that need looking after? Because Cyclops' girlfriend is Emma Frost._

 _Since Emma's first team, the Hellions were killed, a major part of her characterisation has been her intense protectiveness with regards to her students. It occurred to me that it made perfect sense that right away, she would think of Jono and dread the possibility of him losing his powers too, prompting her to demand that Scott leave to save Jono immediately._

 _I started writing this story back in early July, but had to hold off on it while I waited for a few trades to arrive so I could keep everything consistent (yeah, I'm really obsessed with consistency). Those trades were:_  
 _*New X-Men: Childhood's End, which details Emma and the institute's reactions to M-Day._  
 _*Generation M, whose first issue details the state Jono is found in after losing his powers._  
 _*New Excalibur Vol. 2, whose 9th issue details what Jono was up to before and after M-Day._

 _But now it's done and I can move on to the second chapter after I take a break. And going back to my first comment, even something as simple as a description can quickly grow out of hand like this._


	2. Jubilee

Emma watched in anticipation from outside the room. Jono was alive and just about stable, but it was doubtful there could be any improvement. It was, after all, rather difficult to help someone with a crater where their internal organs should be.

She sensed another young mind approaching and, though loathe to admit it, this presence helped Emma reach a certain degree of calmness that had been absent from her life since M-Day a week earlier.

"Miss Frost," the asian girl in the yellow jacket greeted solemnly as she stood beside Emma and looked into the room through the window before them.

"Jubilation," Emma uttered in response. Jubilee had always been the largest source of headaches for Emma back in the Generation X days, but Emma had grown rather fond of the girl over their time together, and she cared for the girl no less than any other student.

"Geez, he looks..." Jubilee was at a loss for words. "How is he?"

"I'm sure you can guess from just looking that there's little, if anything, they can do for him," Emma explained in a tone that worried Jubilee.

"How are _you_ holding up?" Jubilee asked out of genuine concern for the White Queen's well-being.

"Considering I have three hundred students looking to me for answers as to why the majority of them, and the rest of the world, have lost their powers, I'm just bloody peachy, Jubilation." Emma hadn't meant to come off so harshly, but the pressure and the strain of the whole affair had been seriously wearing her down. And Scott's refusal to agree with her on how to handle the depowered students wasn't help much either.

"It's a shame the professor isn't around. Or Jean."

"Yes, I suppose it _is_ a shame we're stuck with the third choice psychic during a worldwide crisis," Emma retorted icily.

"Emma, I didn't mean it like that," Jubilee replied, taking her eyes off of Jono for the first time since arriving.

Emma took a deep breath and let out a sigh. "I know, Jubilation. And I apologise."

"Wow, things _must_ be bad if the White Queen is apologising," Jubilee joked.

Emma's lips curved ever so slightly. "You're absolutely right. Though I've been terribly narrow-minded to have not asked how _you_ have been holding up in light of recent events."

"Light, huh?" Jubilee mused. "You could always just read my mind and find out."

"I could, yes, but I like to think I've built up much more trust with my students than that."

Jubilee stretched out her fingers, but no sparkling lights emerged from their tips. "Not since 'M-Day' or whatever they're calling it. Still, I can't exactly complain. I can still live a normal life. Some of us weren't even given _that_ mercy." Jubilee stared at her friend, the only male member of the team still alive, and barely at that. "How do you think Sean and Ev and Angelo would have fared in all this?"

Emma paused a moment as she thought of their fallen friends. Of a bomb, a plane and a crucifix. Three victims of savage brutality. "I'm sure they- No. That wouldn't be honest. A part of me is glad they didn't live to see all of... this. But I wonder if their presence might have made us all stronger, powers or no."

After standing in silence as they stared at Jono, Jubilee eventually broke the silence. "How are Paige and M?"

"You haven't spoken with them yourself?" Emma turned to face Jubilee for the first time and saw that she was struggling to hold back tears.

"No," Jubilee said as she wiped away the tears. "Everyone's so busy will all this depowering crap and I didn't want to take up anyone's time when they could be spending it-"

Emma cut Jubilee off by embracing her. She stroked the back of Jubilee's head comfortingly. "Even if you don't have your powers anymore, you are still a part of our family. I'm sure Paige, Monet and Logan agree."

"Logan?"

"Paige is taking her sister back to Kentucky and Monet is on other business, but they'll be back soon. You should pay Logan a visit. He'd never show it but he worries. I think it would do you both a world of good."

"O-Okay."

"And Jubilation?"

"I won't tell anyone about this," Jubilee said preemptively. "Don't need to be a mind-reader to see that coming. But can we... stay like this a little longer?"

Emma held Jubilee a little tighter. "Of course."

* * *

Logan wiped his brow before putting down his wrench. Everyone needed a way to cope, to keep their minds off of things during downtime. Logan wanted to do something practical and tuning up his bike seemed like the best use of his time in that regard.

"The world's gone crazy, there's sentinels on the lawn and here you are fixing up your old bike. I guess some things never change, huh?"

Even through all the motor oil, Wolverine would know that scent anywhere. He stood up to face Jubilee, who ran into his arms and hugged him. "It's good to have you back, kid," he said gruffly.

"Not for long though," Jubilee replied, extending her fingers. "No powers."

"Don't mean you ain't got a place here," Logan replied in an attempt at consolation.

"It's fine, I can get by on my own. It's you guys I'm worried about. With all the deaths from depowering-"

"We only lost one. Hydro. Good kid. A few of us lost our powers. Bobby. Dani. Jono. Kids mostly."

"Still got all the big guns, huh?"

"Looks that way, yeah."

"Good," she sighed. "What's gonna happen to the students that lost their powers?"

"Cyke and Emma're still workin' that out. Emma wants to send 'em home, Cyke doesn't. My bet's on her winning out."

"Yeah, it's not easy to get Emma to back down when she makes her mind up."

"Don't you know it."

"Yeah. And thanks for saving Jono too. I dunno what I woulda done if he didn't make it."

"We already lost one kid on M-Day. Ain't gonna let us lose another."

After another moment of silence, Jubilee decided to finish things up. "Well, I should probably get going. It's been fun catching up, big guy."

"Hey," Logan spoke up as Jubilee turned to leave, prompting her to stop. "Don't feel like you ain't one of use anymore. Powers or no, you're an X-Man and you've always got family who'll hear you out, kid."

Jubilee turned around and hugged Wolverine tightly.

* * *

After seeing some of the others, Jubilee left the institute for what felt like possibly the last time. She was sure the whole Decimation thing would pass eventually, but even so, without her powers, Jubilee felt like she truly did not belong with the X-Men anymore.

She had a place to stay arranged. A friend of hers, a reporter named Sally Floyd, had a friend that was willing to let Jubilee stay in a vacant room for a while. In return, Jubilee offered to help where she could with Sally's new column on depowered mutants. With this, at least, Jubilee felt like she could still make a difference.

After meeting with Sally to discuss some things, Jubilee returned to the apartment to look through some newspapers for a proper job and more stable housing situation. After kicking off her shoes and throwing the papers onto the couch, Jubilee noticed that a package had arrived for her. It was a large brown envelope, the contents of which were about as thick as a comic book. Curious, she opened the envelope and read the first piece of paper.

 _Dear Jubilation Lee,  
I understand that you are one of the many victims of M-Day and no longer have your mutant powers. I am also aware of the experience you have accrued during your time with the X-Men. I am interested in this experience and would like to extend an invitation for you to join me as part of the next incarnation of the New Warriors._

There was more, explaining that the team would use technology in place of lost mutant powers and that it was to be lead by Night Thrasher. this was strange as the New Warriors had been killed in Stamford, which had been heavily publicised, and Night Thrasher had died among them. So either he had come back from the dead, which really wouldn't surprise Jubilee at this point, or it was someone else taking on the name.

Jubilee had to admit that the mystery of the new Night Thrasher and his new team intrigued her, but she wasn't sure if she could do this. The letter said to use the pager inside to give her answer, to which she had to ask who even uses a pager anymore? Still, the offer was tempting, so she put the package aside for now and decided to decide later. She still had a lot more to think about before she could properly make her mind up, and she could only hope Paige and Monet were doing better than she and Jono were.


	3. Monet

Monet St. Croix touched down on the Xavier Institute lawn in the early morning, a few days after Jubilee's visit. Madrox had offered her a ride from the X-Factor Investigations office but M had wanted some time alone with her thoughts and had, thus, opted to simply fly there herself. The brief time she'd been with XFI had been hectic as a result of M-Day, even with Madrox's duplicates. Even so, he'd offered her some time away to check in on her old teammates after hearing about Jono and the institute.

M sensed Emma's mind the second her feet touched the floor, though she was doing an admirable job keeping her thoughts locked away from the students. M marched straight for Emma's office, where her former headmistress was, indeed, waiting for her. Neither said a word as M entered; not that they needed to. The two had rarely, if ever, seen each other since Sean's funeral, making their reunion under not dissimilar circumstances an awkward one.

Emma and Monet had probably been the two with the rockiest relationship in the entire team, even with the love triangle between M, Ev and Jubilee and all the drama between Jono and Paige towards the end. M looked around the office, searching for an ice-breaker.

A part of her hoped to find a picture of the team, or perhaps of Emma's newer Hellions team, but she was strangely disappointed to find that no such thing existed on any of the walls. There were pictures facing away from her on the desk; one of those most likely contained at least _one_ of Emma's teams. With nothing she could use on display, M just said the first thing that popped in her head.

"I half expected you to plaster the walls in a thin layer of frost." It was a terrible joke; M knew that, but it did seem to fulfil its intended purpose.

"I'm not a _literal_ ice queen, Monet," Emma quipped back without turning to face her.

"What about the time you swapped bodies with-?"

"You must be desperate to be dragging _that_ old memory up, Monet, Dear." Evidently, her time in Iceman's body was not a moment Emma particularly enjoyed revisiting; not unless she was rubbing her greater control of Bobby's powers in his face, anyway. Still, she seemed to have opened up a little from the banter. Just like old times, M supposed.

"I heard Jubilee was here earlier."

"Sad to have missed her?" Emma asked with a smirk as she turned to face M for the first time. It was difficult to pin down the intent behind those curved lips. Was she mocking M? At a time like this? No. Emma was a lot of things: condescending, self-righteous, indignant, even blunt with her opinions... but given the context surrounding her visit, M found it hard to believe Emma could be so tactless, even with the stress she was clearly enduring. M had always admired that tenacity in Emma, though she would never admit to such out loud.

No, Emma was actually being completely and totally sincere with her seemingly mocking question. And in all honesty, yes, M would have liked to have seen Jubilee again. She had no idea what she would say or do. Catch up? Console her, perhaps? It didn't matter either way, though, seeing how she wasn't there. But Emma was.

"I didn't come here to see her," M replied, attempting to maintain her air of detachment, though she was sure Emma could see right through it, even without using her powers. That was another thing M admired: Emma's natural ability to read people. It was a particularly useful skill for a teacher and former villainess to possess.

"No, I suppose you didn't. It's Paige, isn't it?" M nodded slowly as Emma indicated towards a seat as she took her own seat behind the desk. Emma picked up on M's faint quizzical expression and chose to elaborate. "Given how our group's number has... diminished... you could _only_ be here to see Paige. You don't need to come for my permission to visit Jonothon in the hospital, Jubilee isn't here and you've no reason to see me other than obligation."

"Very astute," M replied simply.

"Indeed," Emma responded, seemingly quite pleased with herself. "How are the twins?"

"They're fine, thanks for asking." Emma could most likely tell that M was intentionally keeping the status of her sisters' powers to herself. She was thankful that Emma seemed to respect her privacy for once and changed the subject.

"I trust you'll be stopping by to see Jonothon before you head back to Detroit."

"Naturally. But Paige comes first; I can do more for her than I can for Jono..."

Emma, perhaps uncharacteristically, reached across her desk and placed a hand on M's. "You'd be surprised what good just being there can do." It seemed that Emma's natural maternal instincts were briefly overpowering her desire to maintain her own detached façade. It creeped M out. But even so, she appreciated Emma's words. She placed her own hand over Emma's, hoping to offer similar encouragement but no words came to her. Emma patted M's hand with her own and pulled back.

"Now, if you don't mind, I've got work to do," she said standing from her seat and turning towards the window again. Despite her best efforts, M was able to catch a glimpse of Emma's faint smile. Neither would ever admit it, but their meeting had done both of them a world of good.

* * *

From what M had been told during a brief run-in with Dr. McCoy, Paige had been one of the unfortunate staff members tasked with contacting the parents of the few hundred students to explain what little they knew about Decimation and how their children had been affected. For those more grievously affected, it had fallen to Emma.

It occurred to M, as she wondered if Emma had contact Jono's parents in England, that she really knew nothing of Jono's personal life aside from how his powers had affected him and his then-girlfriend. Looking back, M and Jono had probably had the least of a relationship of the entire team; M and Jubilee had never gotten on, but it was _something_. M respected Jono's natural leadership skills and his ability to pull through when it really counted. But that was probably as far as it went: mutual respect. A part of her regretted not getting to know him better back in Massachusetts, but regret would get her nowhere. Right now, it was Paige that mattered most.

She quickly found Paige's room, its door wide open. She peered inside to find the blonde sat on her bed, legs crossed and surrounded by books - a sight not unfamiliar to any who had lived with Paige for an extended period of time. From the titles M could glimpse from her position, Paige was evidently researching various phenomena in hopes of figuring out what had happened on M-Day. She had done much the same at the height of the Legacy Virus fright as well, M recalled. M knocked on the door to get the blonde's attention.

As Paige looked up from her book with bags under her eyes, her expression brightened considerably as she recognised the Monaco-raised woman in her doorway.

"M!" she cried, suddenly bursting with energy as she bounced off her bed and rushed over to take her former teammate up in a tight hug.

"H-Hello, Paige," M choked out with a feeble pat on her friend's head, thankful that Paige wasn't currently husked into a stronger material.

"Why are you here?" Paige asked as she relinquished her grip and pulled away.

"I wanted to check up on everyone," M replied.

Paige looked away sadly. "Not many of us left, huh?" she asked, obviously referring to the deaths of Sean, Everett and Angelo.

M placed a hand on Paige's shoulder. "I'll be visiting Jono in the hospital later. I was hoping you might be willing to accompany me."

Paige looked back up at M and slowly nodded. She was evidently quite uncomfortable with the proposition. Whether this was more because of the now vacant crater where Jono's chest used to be, or the fact that the two's relationship had never truly recovered after the big falling out back in the day, M couldn't quite tell.

M squeezed Paige's shoulder reassuringly. She had never been great at empathising with others; nor at comforting them, for that matter. Her time as Penance had only made that worse. But spending time in various X-teams had helped her learn to better cope with people, and Paige was probably the Generation-X member she most considered a friend. She gingerly wrapped her other arm around Paige's shoulders and pulled her in close for a tender hug.

Paige's body became limp and relaxed in her arms and M started to wonder if Paige had actually fallen asleep - she did look exhausted, after all. M didn't mind though; they were family, and no mass depowering or altered reality would ever change that.

* * *

The two had plenty of time to catch up on the cab ride to the hospital. Since M hadn't brought a car and Paige was too distracted by the myriad of problems she was faced with, M felt it best to get external help to make the trip. The cab driver didn't pay their conversation any attention, which M assumed was Emma's doing.

"How is your family holding up?" M asked Paige, the second eldest of ten Guthrie children.

"A little shaken up by this whole depowering thing," Paige replied openly with her natural Kentucky accent. Her days of trying to hide it were long behind her. "Sam and Jay still have their powers. Sam's part of Nightcrawler and Bishop's team and Jay's still at the school. Melody and Jeb lost their powers, so they're back home on the farm. Emma said she'd keep an eye on 'em for me while Sam and I are up here."

Paige always was more trusting of Emma than Monet, in spite of the White Queen's antagonistic nature towards Sam when he was with the original New Mutants.

"How are the twins?" Paige asked.

"They're fine, back home," M replied. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather keep their powered/depowered status in the family."

"Uh, sure," Paige replied uneasily, seemingly a little let down.

"I can assure you that they are fine, Paige," M added, hoping to reassure her friend. After all, the twins were the first version of 'Monet' Paige had met. Now that she thought about it, M was fairly sure her teammates hadn't heard from the twins since she had removed them from the school. "But enough about that. How are _you_ holding up?"

"Me? W-Well, Ah..." It seemed she was about to lie and say everything was okay, but her eyes meeting M's seemed to dissuade her and she started to tear up. "Ah had t' call a bunch a' the parents an' tell 'em that their kids weren't mutants any more 'n' the hate - oh, God, the hate, M-"

Once more, M pulled Paige in for a hug, gently rocking her friend as she let it all out.

"Ah just feel so... powerless, Monet," Paige muttered through her tears.

"That's the irony of it all, Paige. For all our vast powers and proclamations of being 'the next step in human evolution', we still have no greater power or understanding of the universe than baseline humans."

* * *

By the time they arrived at the hospital, Monet had managed to calm Paige down, though she suspected another bout of comforting would be required once they reached Jono's room. It seemed that Paige hadn't seen Jono yet, thanks to both her increased workload and her own inability to face him, since she knew exactly what to expect.

Upon reaching Jono's room, Monet offered to enter first and help Paige brace for it, but she respectfully declined the offer. She was determined to face this challenge herself, which M respected greatly. M opened the door and the two friends stepped inside.


	4. Paige

They say that reality is no match for one's own imagination, Paige mused. But they were wrong. Some images are so horrid, so vile, they can never be crafted from imagination alone. The shell that was Jonothon Starsmore was one such image.

Paige could barely stand when she saw the horror of Jono's mutilated body. M seemed more stable, but her expression betrayed her true emotions. They both knew the story: Jono's power had triggered explosively when it first manifested, leaving him with no chest or lower jaw. Somehow, neither of the two had really thought much about the _internal_ damage this had inflicted. There were no organs, no ribs, no anything. His whole abdomen was empty like a hollowed out fruit. In fact, if they looked closely enough, they could see his spine.

M guided Paige to a chair beside the bed, which she collapsed into suddenly. Paige had already been feeling horrible for leaving things with Jono on such a sour note before his mission to infiltrate Weapon Plus all those months ago. But now? Now, Paige felt partly responsible; it had been her sudden fling with Warren that had led to Jono leaving the school for his mission in the first place, after all. Her stomach was in knots She felt like she was going to throw up, moreso from the guilt than the sight of the decimated husk that Jono had become.

She placed her head in her hands and rocked back and forth, hoping to brush off this wretched, sickly feeling brewing within her. M placed a hand on Paige's shoulder to comfort and steady her, but she could tell that M was shaking from the shock of the sight as well.

Paige wished the others were here. Emma could probably calm her with her powers, or Jubilee or Angelo could try to lighten the mood with a joke about Paige's power being 'more gross', or Sean or Ev would have some words of encouragement for her. But much like the mutant population, not many of the team were left now, even those that had survived with their powers intact. Jono, the last remaining male team member, was incredibly lucky to be alive, and just barely at that. Paige could only shudder to think what kind of agony Jono must have been in.

M crouched down in front of Paige and took one of her hands in hers with her other hand remaining firmly on Paige's shoulder. The two stayed like this for... God only knew how long... as Paige slowly built up the courage to properly face what remained of Jono. She couldn't run away from this forever. He was alive. Against all odds, he was alive and, more than anything else in the world, that was proof that miracles could happen.

Jono was a fighter, always had been. There were so many times that Jono had triumphed against foes that the others had simply been no match for: Omega Red, D'Spayre, even Dracula himself... She recalled something Jono had said upon first meeting the team: "Nothing is impossible. I'm speaking from _experience_. If I can learn to adjust to _this_... all things are possible."

Paige closed her eyes and took a deep breath. M seemed to understand as she released Paige's hand and stepped back. After exhaling, Paige shakily stood up on her own two feet and turned to stare directly at Jono. She took it in. All of it. Everything that remained and everything that didn't. But it wasn't easy. Even if she had moved on, a part of her still loved Jono and always would.

She slowly returned to her seat, the image of Jono's body burned into her mind, and tightly gripped his hand with both of hers. Only now, as she held his hand in hers, did she realised that warm tears were streaming down her cheeks. She had done an admirable job of holding it all in so far, but as she felt his deathly cold skin against hers, her defences broke down completely. She was about to wipe away the tears when a cold finger reached out and did it for her, causing a sudden gasp to escape her lips.

She looked up and there, for the first time, Jono's eyes were open and he was staring right at her. She became paralysed by his gaze. So many conflicting thoughts raced through her mind that she thought her brain would shut down from it all - shock, elation, worry, joy, fear, love, disgust, guilt.

But what did it matter how _she_ felt? Jono's expression was impossible to read. Granted, he _always_ was, but as he was now, he looked so... helpless and feeble. Paige had to avert her eyes, though precisely which emotion was bringing about this response from her, she truly couldn't say.

She forced herself to look back and once she re-established contact with Jono's brown eyes, it suddenly became the easiest thing in the world. She held his hand against her cheek and managed a smile.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Paige, but I need you here," Emma said apologetically. At the very least, she seemed somewhat remorseful for the situation.

Paige paid Jono visits when she could, though the presence of the so-called "198" - mutant refugees forced to live on the mansion grounds - kept her much busier than she would have liked. Among the first wave of refugees were morlock friend of Generation X, Leech, and former Brotherhood member, Toad. Paige enjoyed seeing Leech again, but she didn't like the way Toad kept staring at her whenever she saw him.

"But, Emma-" Paige protested.

Emma held up a hand to silence her former student. "I understand how you feel, Paige, and I truly appreciate everything you've done of Jonothon since, but I need people I can trust on-hand in these dark times."

"I appreciate your faith in me, but-"

"I want you to help watch over the students, Paige," Emma interrupted irritably. "I thought you'd want to be with your _brother_."

That was low of Emma. Using Paige's younger brother, Joshua - or 'Jay' - to force her to acquiesce. At least she wasn't using her psychic powers to _make_ her stop... or was she?

"What's going to happen to the other students?" Paige asked.

"Those who've lost their powers? I'm discussing that with the rest of the faculty. I'm lobbying to have them sent home for their own safety and to make the task of protecting our own easier."

"'Our own', Emma?" Paige repeated, disappointed in her former mentor's choice of words.

"Yes, 'our own', Paige," Emma replied irritably, more than a hint of venom in her words, as if _she_ was disappointed in _Paige_. "Three-hundred was enough when some of them could defend themselves and we had a full staff on-hand. Now, we have a few hundred refugees, coupled with more than half the combined staff and student body incapable of fighting back in case of danger. So, yes, Paige, I'm pragmatically dividing our residents to prioritise the remaining mutants so was can protect them from opportunistic bigots seeking to take advantage of the present situation."

Paige had nothing she could say in response. She disagreed with the sentiment, but she couldn't deny that Emma's train of logic made sense. She wondered if this was how dictatorships started.

"Now, if that's everything, Paige, I have a _lot_ of work to do," Emma said, almost dismissively. Sure, Emma had never been the friendliest person around, but Paige hadn't seen her like this since the Massachusetts school was on its last legs - cold, guarded, letting her emotions get the better of her. Defeated, Paige turned and left.

* * *

Paige stopped by her brother's room straight away. His roommate was away, giving the two some convenient privacy. Paige knocked on Jay's open door as she looked inside. He was brooding over a photo of Julia Cabot, a human girl who had been very much the Juliet to his Romeo... if Romeo had revived after Juliet's suicide due to a mutant healing factor, that is. Her death had hurt him more than the near-fatal wound that had prompted her suicide and Paige doubted he would ever truly get over her. It was likely not far off how Paige had felt upon first seeing Jono in the hospital.

Jay looked up, a hint of joy at seeing his sister in his eyes, yet not enough to contort his face out of its sullen expression. He said nothing but Paige took that as a sign that he was available, whether he wanted her company or not.

"Hi, Josh," she said as she sat on the edge of his bed and placed a hand on his.

"Hey, Paige," he mumbled. Paige couldn't tell if his emotional state had been brought about by memories of Julia or the current state of mutantkind or from some of his friends and teammates leaving due to losing their powers.

"How are ya?"

Jay shrugged.

"Losin' friends is never easy, huh? Back when Ah was with Generation X, we had a few friends come and go. And then Ev..." She winced at the memory of Everett's lifeless body being held by M in the rubble of the Massachusetts school.

"That was the end for your team." Jay's response was precise and accurate.

Paige chose her words carefully. "Yeah, but we'd learned all Emma 'n' Sean had ta teach us. _You_ still have plenty ta learn here. And I'll be here ta help you through it, lil' bro."

"What's going to happen to the other students?" Jay asked, his spirits barely uplifted.

"Emma... _Ms. Frost_... is trying to get them sent home," Paige explained. "Some a' th'other staff're resistant to the idea, though."

"What about you?"

"Huh?"

"What do _you_ think they should do?"

"I..." If she was totally honest, Paige wasn't sure _what_ she'd do, were the choice hers to make. While she disagreed with her mindset, Paige couldn't deny that Emma had a point about manageable numbers, but sending the students away would only make it harder to protect them from anti-mutant hate mobs. She doubted many of them would care that the students weren't mutants anymore. In fact, they would see them as targets for setting an example. That Emma would so callously cast them aside for having lost their powers... Paige didn't think even _Magneto_ would go that far.

"Ah don't know, Jay," Paige replied finally. "I can see both sides, but... There's just no easy answer."

Jay's expression seemed to suggest a level of disappointment. Paige was the second eldest of the Guthrie siblings and a member of the Xavier Institute faculty - she was supposed to be there to guide and comfort Jay, Melody, Jeb and all the rest, but she had yet to manage that. It always seemed so easy for Sam when Paige was Jay's age. But Jay, the student body, all of mutantkind needed Paige to step up and do her part, no matter how small it may seem.

She pulled Jay in for a hug. He didn't resist as she did so, opening up for the first time since she'd arrived. She kissed him on the forehead and told him it would be okay. Jay hugged his sister tighter as warm tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Ah'll keep ya safe, Jay. Ah promise."

* * *

"WHERE IS HE!?" Paige screamed as she barged into the medical room beneath the mansion. Emma had telepathically asked her to come there urgently and once she knew what for, Paige had full-on sprinted downstairs. Emma was there with Beast and Cyclops. In the middle of the group, bed-ridden and covered in bandages, lay Jay. His wings were gone, but not from M-Day, meaning it could have only been from an act of intense violence. Emma seemed about to move to comfort Paige as she stared on in horror, before thinking better of it and keeping her distance.

"He's asleep," Beast assured her. "We're going to do everything we can for him, Paige. I promise."

He didn't say Jay was going to be fine. Hank was as straightforward and honest as they came. If he wasn't confidently proclaiming Jay's high chances of survival, it meant he was trying to not patronise her with lies, even if he couldn't bring himself to say it outright. Jay still had his healing factor post-M-Day, but for Hank to not even bring it up suggested that it had weakened or was simply too weak to be of much help.

Paige slowly, almost robotically, staggered forward, absolutely sure that, if she gave her legs any leeway, they would collapse under the weight on her heart. Hank pulled up a chair for Paige to sit in at her brother's side. Paige collapsed into it before slowly and shakily taking her brother's hand.

Jay's hand was cold. His wings were gone. He was covered in bandages. He was unconscious. If he wasn't in shock from having his wings cut - or, God forbid, _torn_ \- off, he had obviously been sedated. Paige felt a strange sensation of déjà vu.

She tried to ask what had happened to Jay, but she knew that if she opened her mouth, she would only produce sobs or vomit.

Picking up on this, Emma placed a hand on Paige's shoulder from behind and entered her mind to explain. Emma's answer was totally honest, which Paige appreciated, even if the images her mind conjured from Emma's description would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.

Emma had been trying to get answers from the hysterical Jay, but it was simply impossible with his mind racing with so many frantic thoughts that Emma couldn't get a grasp on. It was easier now that he was unconscious, but the sedative and Jay's dwindling life still made it difficult for Emma to sift through his thoughts. He had been trying to warn them about something in spite of his critical wounds, though Emma didn't indicate whether or not she knew what it was.

Jay's condition was critical. Hank clearly had little hope he'd survive the night, if his constant averting his eyes to observe the medical equipment was anything to go by. Paige had never truly considered that, one day, she would have to face the reality of one of her numerous siblings dying. Perhaps it was because she was the second eldest and had always subconsciously assumed she would be one of the first to go. Yes, she had experienced the loss of close friends with Ev, Angelo and Sean amongst others - even her father when she was young - but this was her baby brother, for God's sake!

"Where's Sam?" she asked telepathically, absolutely sure she didn't want to open her mouth.

"He's away on a mission with Kurt and Bishop," Emma replied, though whether telepathically or verbally, Paige's mind was too numb to be able to tell. "I'm afraid I don't think he'll make it back in time."

Jay's heart rate was weakening by the second. It was clear to all present that Jay would not die surrounded by his family as he deserved to, but instead, with only his one sister, who had promised and failed to protect him. Paige felt totally inadequate and powerless in the face of this revelation. Yes, she'd had other tasks to carry out and Jay had been careful to avoid anyone knowing he had been sneaking out after curfew, but it was her duty as Jay's big sister to be there for him.

She had failed him on the highest level possible. What would their parents say? How would she even begin to explain this to their younger siblings?

"p...paige...?"

Jay's weak croak awoke Paige from her stupor. Her wide eyes made contact with his for only a moment before he convulsed in agony and... was that fear in his eyes? Was he scared to see her? Hank and Scott leapt in to calm him down. Emma released Paige to push her way through and attempt to calm Jay with her powers.

Scott tried to move Paige back, but she resisted fervently. There was no way she could just leave her brother in agony like this. Even if she couldn't help him medically, surely she could be a calming presence or just be there as additional manpower or-

Paige turned on her heel and marched robotically out of the room as Emma's telepathic command took hold over her mind. There was nothing Paige could do and Emma suspected it was Paige's very presence that had triggered these convulsions. Even if Paige would hate her for it, Emma had to get her out of there before she could focus on calming Jay down. She would thank her for it later once Jay had recovered.

Or so she thought...

* * *

Paige sat on her bed back on the Guthrie farm in a depressed stupor. She had only left the room for food and hadn't even changed her clothes. Every now and then, she would shed her skin in lieu of taking a shower or bath; it was just as effective anyway, so why bother with the extra effort? Besides, it was about the only thing her power was good for...

Between Jay's assault and now, the truth surrounding the event had come to light. He had been attempting to negotiate with Reverend William Stryker of the anti-mutant Purifiers. Stryker had used Jay as a spy to acquire information on the goings on at the mansion. At the same time, Emma had successfully convinced the rest of the faculty to send the depowered students home, only for Stryker's forces to blow up the three buses, killing everyone aboard.

After that, Stryker shot Jay dead.

He had then led his forces in a direct attack on the institute that had claimed the lives of at least two other students. The rampage had finally been stopped when one of the students, Elixir, used his power to create a tumour inside Stryker's braining, killing him much quicker than the bastard deserved. That was the silver lining in all of this - that the number of students murdered in cold blood during the attack may not have been more than two. What kind of a world would allow _that_ to be the positive in a situation?

Paige had managed to mostly hold it together until after the funeral. It wasn't until then that it truly did feel like Jay was gone from her life forever. Her mother had urged her to return home for a while and Paige had... accepted didn't seem the right word - more like... she had just gone with the flow. She was barely holding on at this point, seeing how her brother had died within a week of her promising to his face that she would protect him.

No one blamed her for any of it, of course, and she knew that there was nothing she could reasonably have done to prevent this tragedy, but a small part of her still felt like she could have. Emma had offered to arrange some counselling, but Paige had turned her down before her departure. At least her ability to leave indicated she wasn't Emma's thrall anymore.

She wanted to be alone more than anything, but she would probably go back eventually. She had lost her father when she was younger and, as an X-Man, she was hardly unfamiliar with the loss of friends, but it still hurt every time it happened. The only thing that kept her going was the hope that Jay could some day be resurrected; there were more X-Men that had died and come back than that hadn't, after all. Even Sam had apparently died and been revived shortly thereafter at some point. It was a small hope, but she clung desperately to it to keep herself going.

There was a knock at the window. As Paige expected, it was Monet. M had been visiting Paige every now and then since the funeral to check up on her. Paige hated making her friend worry, but she was at a serious low point here. Of course, she kept all of this to herself so as not to burden anyone else with her problems.

She opened the window for M, who hugged her and gave her some words of condolence and encouragement, as per usual, which Paige was truly grateful for.

Unbeknownst to Paige, however, Monet was keeping something from her too. She desperately wanted to tell her, but knew better than to do so. She felt a bad about it, sure, but given Paige's current emotional and mental turmoil, she was more concerned with convincing her friend to undergo therapy than telling her that Jono had disappeared from his hospital room...


	5. Jono

Jono was dying.

Those Weapon X bastards had fixed up his body and planted a device in his chest to allow him to regulate his powers to avoid another chest explosion. But irony of ironies, the damn thing had gone haywire and blown up on him, causing the exact thing it had been made specifically to prevent. But this time, it was different. A hole in his chest, he could live with - he'd done so for a good few years, after all - but it was his power, the internal perpetual psionic energy furnace, that allowed him to go on. But something was wrong. The furnace was extinguished.

That's how he knew he was dying. He laughed at the irony of it all - or he did as best he could without anything left inside his torso to allow such a thing. He couldn't see the full extent of his injury as his body was totally devoid of energy, but he could still feel the damage; he could feel how it had conformed perfectly to the specifics of his old injury. His body would be left in much the same state it had been in in life.

He thought about it often; death. Realistically, he never should have survived his powers manifesting in the first place. But he had for a while and the thought was always there, at the back of his mind. He'd seen friends die: Sean, Ev, Angelo, Maggot...

He could see them, all four of them smiling, along with every other X-Man who had ever died and not come back. They were all here to welcome him into the afterlife, whatever that may be.

"Jono m'boy," Sean said in his welcoming Irish accent. Jono tried to reach out but he was too weak to move a muscle. "It's not your time, son," Sean said, and Jono felt strangely hurt by that. He should be happy, he supposed, that he was supposed to live on, but he wasn't. Life had always found a way to kick him when he was down. Granted, some of that was down to his own social ineptitude.

He thought of Paige. He thought about how had had colossally screwed that up by backing down after telling her in all but words that he loved her. He wanted this. He wanted _death_. He'd give the reaper a hug and buy him a bloody beer if he could, but as Sean said, it wasn't to be.

One-by-one, the X-Men disappeared. It was as if his friends, his family, were abandoning him. In the end, even Ev and Angelo left him, only Sean remaining behind.

"Wake up, Jono," he said, before his form shifted and morphed into that of Scott Summers.

"Wake up, Jono!" he repeated frantically. "Logan, hurry it up!" he called back over his shoulder.

"Goin' as fast as I can, Cyke!" his compatriot called back as he pushed some large container towards them.

"You're going to be alright, Jono," Cyclops assured him, but he wasn't so sure that was good news.

He was too tired to carry on anyway. He would either wake up alive later, or not wake up at all. He supposed he'd leave it up to fate to decide, as he closed his eyes and let the darkness swallow him.

* * *

Waking up to find Paige at his bedside, weeping over the fear he might die soothed Jono's pain more than any medicine or advanced technology ever could, even if it tore him up inside to see Paige so upset. This would only get worse as Paige's life took a downward spiral, but at least he knew that their last argument wouldn't be their final interaction.

She and Monet got him caught up on the mass depowering and the casualties, of the goings on at the mansion and with spin-off X-groups around the globe. Others occasionally stopped by: Jubilee, depowered like him, had moved back to New York to be closer to everybody. She admitted that the proximity was all that kept her going some days, before she suddenly realised who she was talking to and feebly attempted to backpedal.

Lacking the capacity to communicate verbally or telepathically anymore, Jono had been given a simple remote to press to respond "Yes" or "No". There were a few other options to allow him to make certain requests, but this still meant that conversation was largely one-sided and the other party would need to speak specifically so as to allow him to respond with his limited word range.

"No. No." He pressed the button a few times and gave a thumbs up with his free hand to make his point. He wanted to assure her the she hadn't offended him or anything. In truth, simply having her here, speaking her mind, reminded him of the good old days. He tried to smile, but with only one lip, he could tell it looked forced, even without seeing it himself. Even so, she smiled at that. There was a clear sense of pity in her eyes, which probably made him feel more uncomfortable than his incomplete body ever could. She told him she had been offered a big opportunity to do some good without her powers, but she was on the fence about it.

"Go for it," he told her through a thumbs up and a press of the "Yes" button. It was why she'd wanted to be an X-Man, right? To make a difference. She seemed to get the message, such as it was. She squeezed his hand and thanked him, said she'd be taking the offer, but that meant she'd have less time to visit him.

It was hard to hear her say that, especially when Emma was busy managing damn near the entire mutant population on Earth, Paige was struggling to continue doing her part in assisting Emma, and M was busy in District X. But Jono had never been one to let himself hold others back. It was bad enough his own life was a wretched mess; he wasn't going to let himself become the cause of other people's lives ending up the same way. He assured her he'd be fine, even if they both knew that wasn't the case.

As Jubilee's visit did indeed become more and more sparse, Jono had to wonder if she had understood his intent. She still held out hope that a cure to restore their powers could be found, but Jono had always had a very different mindset to Jubilation Lee.

He spent a long while in the hospital - weeks, months, he had no idea. Time was a concept that no longer mattered aside from the clock ticking down to the inevitable failure of the technology keeping him alive or the collateral damage from a super-powered battle ending his miserable existence.

Any one of his friends would tell him there was hope in all of this being undone, but they'd only be trying to convince themselves. Jono knew this was it. He wasn't stupid or naive enough to hope there would come a day when he would miraculously recover and go back to his old life... but sometimes, on very rare occasions, he wished more than anything that he was. 

* * *

Jono was assigned an elderly therapist to help see him through his transition, probably hired by Emma or Scott. His name was Dr. Hartley - well, that was his alias, anyway. He seemed friendly enough. That is, until he abducted Jono from the hospital and took him to the secret hideaway of Clan Akkaba, a cult that worshipped En Sabah Nur, Apocalypse. They were also his blood descendants.

Jono's family, as it happened, had direct ties to Apocalypse as his family had been a part of the clan up through his great-grandfather. Even after leaving the clan, the old man had always insisted on the family receiving the clan's crest as a brand on their chests 'just in case'. Jono had always thought the old man was crazy, until he'd been taken by the clan and forced through a procedure that left him changed physically.

He stared at the stranger in the bathroom mirror. He looked a little like Jono, but his skin was grey, his pronounced lips blue, and his eyes bright red. And they'd reapplied that damn chest tattoo as well; the one good thing about his chest going Hiroshima. Jono had been changed to resemble how one might imagine Apocalypse himself looked in his youth. For what reason, he really had no idea.

It was a strange sensation, feeling the intense mixture of emotion he did. On the one hand, he looked like Apocalypse, one of the greatest threats the world had ever seen. On the other, his jaw and chest were restored. He could speak, eat, taste, breathe for the first time in years. It was like a wish granted by some trickster genie, twisting the wish into a curse.

"Hey... Jono?" Jubilee asked slowly as her reflection came into view behind his. "Are you...?"

"I'm fine, Jubes," he replied, realising then how alien it was for both of them to hear him physically say her name. "It's just this..." He buttoned up his shirt to cover the bright red brand. "This is gonna take some getting used to."

Jubilee stepped beside him. "Well, you adjusted to looking like the impact zone of the meteor that killed the dinosaurs in short order, so something like this should be no problem."

He chuckled. God, how long had it been since he'd been able to smile. How long had it been since he'd _wanted_ to smile? He patted her on the head teasingly before leaving the bathroom, and the somewhat miffed Jubilee, behind.

After his transformation, Jono had escaped Clan Akkaba. Well, escaped wasn't necessarily the most accurate description of Apocalypse himself letting Jono go when he had rejected them. He had rejected Excalibur too immediately upon leaving. Pete Wisdom had been visiting Jono right before his abduction and had evidently scrambled the team to help find him.

Jono was tired of the lack of control he had over his own life. Things had been going well with Gayle before his face exploded, leaving her crippled and forcing him to move to the States and join an amateur superhero team. Then, the school had shut down after one of his friends was murdered and the two advisers started to go off the deep end. He had been given the choice to join the X-Men, but what else was there for him outside of that? Unlike the others, he couldn't live a normal life, so joining up with the next freak show was his only option. Xavier knew that and the invitation was just a formality.

Paige's relationship with Warren was outside of his control. The mission to infiltrate Weapon Plus was his only option aside from prison, in light of his bar fight with Warren. Losing his powers, getting abducted, being born into a family with ties to Apocalypse, none of it was within his control and Jono was sick to death of it.

That was why he had blown up at them. It wasn't their fault, he knew that even then, but he had to vent somehow. He had expressed his desire to be left alone in a speech about that would make Churchill blush, and told _the_ premier superhero team of the British Isles to sod off.

Jono respected them, of course - anyone who risked their lives for other people was okay in his books - but he was still conflicted on what they had done. On the one hand, yes, they did leave him alone, but Captain Britain was the brother of the X-Men's Psylocke, and his teams typically consisted of X-Men, both present and former. As such, he had direct ties with the institute, allowing him to get in touch and keep them informed on Jono's situation.

Emma had sent Jubilee to find him - or so Jubes herself had claimed. Supposedly, Emma had wanted one of Jono's friends to be there for him and Jubilee, no longer a serving X-Man, was the obvious choice in light of the added workload the rest of them had. Emma had a strange way of being simultaneously coldly pragmatic and warmly comforting.

As for right now, Jono had a choice to make. He stared at the costume that was draped across Jubilee's bed. It was a skin-tight bodysuit, somewhat reminiscent of Spider-Man's, only in orange and white with bulging lenses for eyes. It would serve Jubilee well as Wondra of the New Warriors.

After Stamford, the New Warriors name was brand poison. Only a crazy person would choose that name for a new team, and from what Jubilee had told him, the miraculously alive Night Thrasher was just that - in a supposedly good way. He had invited her to be the new team's drill sergeant, which she had accepted at Jono's encouragement. Jono had seen a couple of news reports of supervillain defeats that Jubilee had later claimed to be her and the other recruits. That had made Jono just a little more hopeful that life could get better from here.

"Given it some more thought?" Jubilee asked as she stood beside him again, looking down at the costume too. "The others are good, but a team needs familiarity. It'd really help me out if I had someone I know and trust fightin' alongside me, y'know?"

"I _have_ thought about it, Jubes," he replied, moving around the bed to the window overlooking the rain-soaked street below. "Fer the longest time, I thought my life had already peaked and it was all downhill from here. The old team gave me some stable footing, but everything broke down in the end and joinin' the X-Men ain't all it's cracked up to be."

Jubilee remained anxiously silent as she moved around the bed to sit down near him.

"I remember... how you looked at me when you found me in that shelter. I could tell right away that it weren't easy lookin' at me, young Apocalypse that I am now. But I noticed, once you brought me back here, how yer stopped lookin' at me like that real quick. It was like we were right back to how we were in the old days. I appreciate that, Jubes."

He turned back to face her. He'd never been good at dealing with other people, especially after his powers manifested, but Jubilee was hanging on his every word and he felt like he knew exactly what to say next.

"It's inspirin', really. No matter how bad things got - and they tend ter get _unreasonably_ bad in our line of work - you and Angelo, yer never let it get ter yer. Lookin' at this objectively, call it cynically if yer want, this whole New Warriors thing is a terrible idea. People hate the New Warriors right now more than they hate mutants, and that's bloody sayin' somethin'. Yer'll be usin' tech to simulate new powers yer've got sod all practice wiv."

Jubilee looked like she was starting to have second thoughts about the whole thing. That wasn't his intention, though.

"But yer still gonna go through with it despite everythin' goin' against yer. Some might say yer too much of a dreamer ter lead a team. Maybe you are. But I feel like, if there were more people like you, Jubes, maybe Xavier's dream wouldn't be just that anymore. So, you ask me if I'll join yer New Warriors? Long as you're there ter lead us... I'm in."

Jubilee beamed as he said this. She leapt to her feet and hugged him tightly. Thinking about it, he wasn't sure if she'd ever hugged him before. Really, he wasn't sure _anyone_ had done so since then. Had the crater and psionic furnace been obstacles keeping people away? He'd forgotten how it felt to be held by another person or to hold them in return. It felt nice.

She pulled away, a sudden mock seriousness playing across her face. "I'm not gonna go easy on yer limey ass just cuz we're old friends, y'know."

Jono shrugged nonchalantly. "Wot yer gonna do, sparky? Put on a light show?"

Jubilee's expression displayed shock, indignation and wry respect all in the space about about two seconds. "What's this? Mr. Starsmore, I do believe that was a joke. I genuinely didn't ya know had it in ya."

"Life's full a' surprised, Ms. Lee," he replied, sounding not as jovial as he might like on account of his voice being... it was probably deeper than it used to be - he barely remembered what his voice had sounded like anymore. It might have been like his telepathic voice, but there really was no way to be sure.

"Ain't that the truth?" she replied wistfully. "But, hey, if we're gonna get you in the team, you'll need some new powers. You looked over that list I gave ya?"

Jono nodded. "Yeah. I know which one I want ter use: Sonics."

Jubilee smiled knowingly. "I thought you might. For Sean?"

Again, Jono nodded. "Fer Sean."

She held out a hand for him to shake, which he did. "Let's do him proud, Jono."

"Yeah. Let's do all of 'em proud."


End file.
